Marketing ideas

[Gary Crawford]

Greetings all, I have for many years have been very frustrated by the lack of MA interest here in East Tennessee.A couple years ago,I had an idea that I'd like some input or better ideas about.First,let me give the scenerio.Here in East Tennessee, there is in no way a lack of variety of MA schools,but attendence is really bad over all.Since Martial Arts schools are a bad to marginal business at best,almost none of the schools can afford any really good advertisement seperatly.My idea:Get an ad agency to make a Television commercial, a commercial exposing varios types of MA that are availible from the Knoxville area up to the tri-cities and tag the commercials with the schools in the viewing broadcast stations area that are participating.I think if the 60 or 80 or so schools in the area split the cost of a really well produced commercial,it wouldn't be that expensive for each school.Only problem-someone would have to sell the idea to almost all of them.Any suggestons?

 

[grimfang]

I would suggest contacting your local county officials first and seeing if they can help you out with it. The tourism & Travel boards and the Business boards often produce television commercials to attract visitors and business... usually these ads will focus on the wide variety of activities available in the area. They are usually allotted a specific budget for this purpose, and they usually have very few ideas for new ads. It might be worth a try to see if you could convince them to produce a commercial promoting the many wonderful martial arts schools in your area... naturally, since its your idea it would be safe to assume that your school would be mentioned/featured prominently in the ad.

I know... dealing with governments on stuff like this is a pain, and it almost never seems to work.. but its worth a shot.

 

[Gary Crawford]

Grimfang,Thanx,that is an idea I haven't thought of.I will look into that idea,although it might be complicated(that won't deter me though)since I an dealing with more than one county,but all the counties seen to have a common goal,more money,so I'll give it a try!

 

[Nightingale]

there are much easier ways to advertise.

1. get a website if you haven't already
2. fliers and brochures.

You can do a bulk "junk" mail through the post office to everyone in your area (a little pricey but still way cheaper than a TV spot).

You can talk to the owners of local businesses and make an arrangement with them. For example, you leave a stack of brochures in the local nail salon with a 10% off coupon in the brochure, so they have to bring the brochure with them to your school. The nail salon puts their address stamp on the back of the coupon. For every coupon that gets turned in from someone who signs up for an intro course, you kick back the salon $10 or so.

When Halloween rolls around, have your students drop coupons for a free intro lesson into the kids bags along with their treats. It gets people into your studio.

Offer your students a month of free lessons every time they bring in a person to sign up for a month. That way, even if the newbie only stays a month, you're not out any cash, because the newbie's paid for the month, and you comp the student, therefore you're taking in the same amount, you've just got one more body in class that has the potential of paying for the next month.

 

[7starmantis]

I think the number one most effective recruitment tool we have used (and we've tried them all) is student marketing. We offer an incentive to our students for everyone they bring in. When we have demos we do alot of VIP-ing which intails talking to people and getting a phone number to call them and setup a free tour of the school and we go over all the programs with them. This has been a tremendous success, much better than anything else we have tried. Some of our top students go out and VIP during the day at the colleges and such as well. Some will go to the park and work on their forms and such and wait for people to approach them. (You have to have a certain level of skill for this one )


7sm